"You are the Holy Spirit."

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus makes it very clear that I must learn to trust my brothers, and see them as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is outside the dream, but speaking to me through every means that I will avail myself of - books, movies, people, postcards, billboards, photographs, and of course in my own thoughts.

The Course spends a great deal of time focusing on teaching me how to perceive the Holy Spirit in everyone. This is, of course, the most difficult thing to do because it runs in direct opposition to what my ego wants: to see everyone as an ego! And the first step in learning this is to accept the fact that I DO want to see everyone as an ego. I want to see everyone as an ego because of all the guilt I am storing in my mind (that we ALL are storing) that I need a depository for. And so other people become my dumping ground; the trash cans that I psychologically vomit all my guilt onto so that it is them that seem to be the guilty ones rather than myself.

As I practice forgiveness - which is about forgiving my brothers and myself for what I HAVEN'T done (since in truth, nothing has ever really happened to separate my mind from God's) - the Innocence that I begin to experience draws me inexorably toward Itself and I find that struggling to fight against the process (which sometimes feels like death) becomes intolerable. All I can do is surrender completely to the Light, and the gift of this surrendering is the experience of Total Peace.

Also, in this process of surrendering, I'm learning that my greatest peace and Joy comes from COMPLETELY giving up my perception of our brother as an ego, and comes SOLELY from seeing him as the Holy Spirit. I used to think before that someone had to earn my trust first and demonstrate that they were at least partially "enlightened" before I'd be willing to consider that maybe, just maybe the Holy Spirit could speak through them to me. But now I understand how backwards that kind of thinking was. It's like the title of that Wayne Dyer book, "I'll see it when I believe it." It doesn't work the other way around.

What I'm discovering is that there are ONLY two choices: you can see your brother as an ego OR as the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in between. You can't go around thinking that some people are enlightened; some people are totally egoic; and others are somewhere in between those two extremes. That is how the ego WANTS me to think, and it is very tempting indeed! But what I'm learning is that there ARE no enlightened or unenlightened people; there is only an enlightened way of perceiving and an unenlightened way of perceiving. And there is nothing in between. If I choose to see ANYONE as an ego or even as a person HAVING an ego, then I am choosing the unenlightened perspective. There's nothing wrong with this, mind you; no penalty for making this choice; only that it will leave me feeling unsatisfied and in the dark cloud of denial. The only price for remaining in the dark cloud of denial is that I am still in the dark cloud of denial.

It has been very humbling to come to this realization. It means that I've been mistaken about everything I've ever believed. And it's especially humbling, each and every day, if you're in an intimate relationship with someone and committed to this inner path.

In my relationship with Armelle, for example, the temptation to perceive her as an ego comes a thousand times a day; most of the time below my conscious awareness. Most of the time there is just a minor sense that we aren't experiencing total Oneness with each other. Anything less than total Oneness is ego. But the dark cloud of denial is so thick that, relatively speaking, this is rarely acknowledged. The fact that I am perceiving her as an ego only reaches consciousness when some "violation" has seemingly occurred; i.e. when something I perceive in her behavior violates one of the pre-set expectations I set up without even being aware of it. An example of this occurred earlier today when she looked at me in a way that made me think she might be judging me. Of course my ego immediately feels threatened and says, "Why is she looking at me that way! She should be practicing her forgiveness right about now!" Lol...

I've noticed that not just with her, but also with many others with whom I've walked on the spiritual path over the years, that there is a strong tendency to try to correct them but to get defensive when they try to correct me. Spiritual people are highly skilled at seeing the ego at work in others, while avoiding the same defense mechanisms in themselves, and so they often try to "correct" others under the guise of "being helpful". But to blame them for this error is just as much a mistake as the error they are making. It's all a game of ego seeing ego. Eventually I learned that the fastest way to undo MY OWN ego (which is the only ego there is) is to stop correcting others and yet to ALLOW others to correct me.

This was a tough lesson to accept at first, because the first defense that my ego tried to throw up was, "Hey, wait a minute! If I can't correct them anymore, why should I let them correct me!!!!" But of course, it's exactly what the ego DOESN'T want that is what I'm realizing I DO want since it will lead to the end of the ego's life, which marks the beginning of Real Life. It requires me to be supremely humble, and to accept myself as the one-who-needs-healing in every relationship and encounter.

So with Armelle, and with everyone I encounter now, I practice remembering one thing as I regard them: You are the Holy Spirit. Everything you do or say is a blessing to me. You are either demonstrating Love to me, or you are offering me another forgiveness opportunity, and I thank you for that.

Armelle wrote recently in one of these blog posts (titled "Not following the guidance, projection, and attraction to guilt") about the jealousy she was experiencing a couple weeks ago in Paris when our friend Caroline and I were spending a lot of time together sharing about deep stuff. And when Armelle got upset and began verbally accusing me of trying to seduce Caroline, of playing games, etc.., the temptation to perceive her as an ego was VERY strong. And did I fall into that temptation? Yes, of course. The point isn't to avoid falling into the hole of judgment, but to train our minds to get out as quickly as possible. Yes, eventually we learn to step around the hole, but first we have to learn to see how often we fall into it, and then practice getting out quicker and quicker.

I've noticed that when I fall into the hole of judgment these days, it tends to be a very mild "injury" to myself now. In other words, I never go into a rage anymore, probably because my mind simply has learned not to tolerate that level of emotional upset anymore. And yet, at the same, a minor upset is really nothing more than a cover over intense rage, so I suppose it's all the same whether it appears mild or intense. Judgment is judgment.

In this case with Armelle, it was the very mild form of judgment where my ego is quietly sitting back being a very "spiritual ego" seeing someone else's "ugly and jealous ego" and feeling very superior as a result. In the spiritual ego's mind, I find myself thinking what SEEM like very compassionate thoughts: "Oh she's just having an ego attack; she'll get out of it eventually." or "It's okay. I'll forgive her for being in her ego, and I know that eventually she'll forgive herself.", etc..

But later that weekend, I came to realize that those kinds of thoughts are just as much wrong-minded as the thoughts she was seemingly having about me. There are no "degrees" to the ego. The ego is the ego is the ego. Thoughts about another's ego are still coming from MY ego because I'm still seeing her as the one with the problem! It is in denial of the fact that there is only ONE problem: perceiving a problem anywhere other than in my perception.

Right-minded perception (the Holy Spirit's perception) doesn't see ANYONE as having an ego at all! It knows that there is only ONE ego and it isn't "out there" - it exists solely in my own mind. In exists solely at the level of perception. It's like there are two pairs of glasses I can look through the world with - the ego's or the Spirit's. And the ego doesn't exist anywhere other than in MY pair of ego glasses. In other words...

There ARE no manifestations of ego in the world.

There are only neutral images, and yet when I choose to look at these neutral images through my pair of ego glasses, then it APPEARS that the ego is manifesting itself inside the images and acting through them. This dynamic is part of the ingenuity of the ego thought system. It protects itself by making you see itself everywhere but where it actually exists: It is in my own darkened glasses, and no where else.

When I understand this and accept it fully, then ALL of Armelle's behavior (and everyone's) becomes a blessing, for it flushes up the parts of my own ego that I wasn't able to see previously, and allows me then to look at it. Looking is the only way to undo my ego. Once I'm willing to do that - to look at my own ego instead of living in denial by thinking that the ego might also exist in someone else - then there is hope! Then Armelle becomes my Savior, the Holy Spirit Herself, acting out a role called "jealous wife" for me, in what could be thought of as a perfectly orchestrated, therapeutic skit designed by Pure Wisdom to give me an unprecedented opportunity to see another aspect of how my ego enslaves me.

And that's what this whole universe is when I see it clearly, when I have the willingness to let my perception be healed completely. I then see it as a vast play in which the Holy Spirit is playing every part - the seemingly "good" persons as well as the seemingly "bad" persons. The whole play is perfectly orchestrated by Him with only one purpose in mind - to provide the most Joyous therapeutic experience possible for one mind and one mind only - my own! Each experience is designed to give me an opportunity to see "The Matrix" I've been enslaved by in my own mind! And if I temporarily forget this way of thinking and go into denial again, then it's okay... it won't be long before the Holy Spirit reminds me again. The pain of denial can only be tolerated for so long. I'll always eventually remember again, for healing is inevitable. And the more I remember to surrender my sword of judgment, while allowing everyone else to keep theirs, the faster I will remember my invulnerability as the Son of God.

Thank you Holy Spirit! Thank you for Acting through everyone of my brothers and sisters, and by orchestrating each and every moment of my life for the healing of what never was.

Love,
Erik